last semester of lectures. 

Ran: 7.2 miles. Missed Saturday’s run, so Taylor and I ran 2 miles on Sunday. Guess that means we’ll have to bump up the distance soon.

Reading: Finished Truman Capote’s Summer Crossing. I’d give it 2/4 stars. Took a friend’s advice and checked out Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast.

School: Already set a date for my Senior Show, a day before Graduation. Life is getting real. Commuting isn’t killing me, yet. Did I mention life is getting real?

Cooking: I crave chicken salad now, all of the time. Mostly because I am in love with Walton’s. I had no mayonnaise to make chicken salad, so I made my own mayonnaise.

Another note: Visited my parents & Patsy this Sunday. What a lovely day. Another, nother note, WHERE ARE THE WEEKS GOING?

This weekend I finished reading my second book of 2012. I was actually in search of Breakfast At Tiffany’s but the only Capote book the library had was Summer Crossing. The inside leaf was very interesting. Capote had tinkered around with the book for over a decade filling many handwritten journals. This manuscript was even believed lost but eventually found after his death and published by his family. Now, I don’t know if this was a good idea or not. If it wasn’t good enough for Capote to publish back then, why would he want his family to publish it? I don’t know.

The relationship were completely haywire, the plot was slow & if you’ve never read Capote, his style can take some getting use to. Honestly, it wasn’t my cup of tea. While finding a picture to post on this, I ran across an article saying that Scarlett Johansson plans on directing an adaption, even possibly giving herself the lead role as Grady.

Hemingway on a pretty day.

thedailywhat:

Follow Up of the Day: In an update posted to his Tumblr blog, Photojojo and Jelly founder and all-around good guy Amit Gupta relays the amazing news that he has found a 10/10 matched donor and will be heading to Boston tomorrow to start the transplant process.

When last we left Amit, he had just been diagnosed with Acute Leukemia. His doctor told him he needed to find a bone marrow donor right away — no simple task for a person of South Asian descent.

Thankfully, the Internet stepped up and offered to help.

100 donor drives and countless of reblogs, tweets, and Facebook posts later, and Amit has found his match. “You all literally helped save my life,” Amit says in his post, adding “(And the lives of many others.)”

As for what happens next, he elaborates:

Tomorrow, I’ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks.

First I’ll get a second Hickman line to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I’m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try anderadicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process, the immune system I was born with, and my body’s ability to make blood, are destroyed.

Next Friday, I get my donor’s stem cells by IV. I start onimmunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I’ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I’ve no immune system, so I’m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world.

Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own.

This is science fiction stuff. I can hardly believe it’s even possible, and there’s lots of chances for things to go wrong. It’s frightening.

Getting back to “normal” takes time, and there are plenty of obstacles along the way. But Amit’s odds are pretty good given his age, and he knows his family and friends are there to support him every step of the way.

“A few months ago I didn’t have many options,” he says. “Today I have a plan. I am alive. I start tomorrow. Wish me luck!”

Good luck, Amit! 

[superamit.]

This makes me heart so so happy!

One listen and I was hooked. It doesn’t sound anything like her other stuff. 

Safe & Sound - Taylor Swift ft. The Civil Wars

Church Basement.

tulletulle:

Rodarte for Opening Ceremony Fall 2011 by Autumn de Wilde

so lovely.

Porch beauties. 

I’d been craving chicken salad for a while. Who knew it was so easy to make your own mayo?

1. Combine 1 egg yolk, pinch of salt, half a lemon juice & teaspoon white wine vinegar. Whisk together until bright yellow. 

2. Add 1/4 cup of vegetable/olive oil into the mixture by dripping a few drops in at a time. Continuous whisking for 4 minutes until oil is all in.

3. Add another 1/2 of oil in a slow drip into the mixture, continuous whisking for another 4 minutes. The mayo will thicken & lighten in color.

Weekend art project with Taylor.

Ran: 8 miles. Week two of a mile a day was better. I can feel myself getting stronger each run. It’s not the actual runs that are hard, it’s the process of getting out of bed & onto the road. 

In the process of: refinishing the kitchen chairs. Sanding, staining & recovering new cushions, oh my. 

Fantasizing over: Paris, again. I even looked up photography jobs. Let me dream. 

New Dishes I cooked: homemade gumbo, 8 hour slow cooked brisket & dill tomato baked eggs. Yumm.

Adventures: Taylor & I biked to the Blanton Museum on UT campus. We saw some wonderful paintings and exhibits. I even had the chance to showed off my smarts when we got to the late egyptian / greco-roman statues. Thank you Professor Pizer!